Because he has 'watch'd men, manners too / Heard what times past have said, seen what ours doe', the humanist antiquary earns the praise of the humanist poet. The balanced rhythm of attention that Ben Jonson here ascribes to John Selden is an idealization of what might be called the neoclassical habit of mind, with its alternation between censorious inspection of the present and studious review of the past. Other rhythms support this central one - of collection and dissemination, exemplification and dismissal, learning and teaching:

Jonson represents Selden's classicism as an ideal personal discipline, an ethics. Oddly, however, the ethical poise asserted here is represented without perfect aesthetic poise; the poem seems a less balanced thing than its subject. It is not just the unfortunate effect of the hectic exclamation marks; it is more a matter of the Ciceronian exclamations, with their ellipses constricting the praise as much as the repetitions extend it.

Although humanism took root in the learned culture of fifteenth-century England, it was not until the next century that it bore fruit in vernacular literature. In the period between the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini's visit to England (c. 1418-22) and Bishop William Waynflete's founding of Magdalen College School at Oxford (1480), English book collectors, diplomats and grammarians increased their knowledge of Italian classical learning. These cultural links with Italy fostered the creation of the humanist libraries and grammar schools which would educate the Tudor elite - among them the first great English humanist writer, Sir Thomas More, who, unlike many of his contemporaries, had no direct contact with Italy. As in Italy, humanism took root in England at a time when the education it promoted was suited to the needs of the governing classes: the monarch, members of the council, church officials and civil servants. It became necessary to write Latin well, with the humanist's attention to grammar and the elegantly subordinated syntax of the Ciceronian style, in order to carry on diplomatic and domestic matters of state. Since, however, this humanist programme was also appropriated and deployed to produce great literary works, it can be said to have been much more than a mere pragmatic tool to attain influence and power. Indeed, humanist-inspired works of literature even allowed for scepticism about the principles underlying the primary realm of power - the economy, politics, institutional religion - as well as criticism of the aims of humanism itself.

In 1576 the Cambridge University praelector in rhetoric, Gabriel Harvey, began his spring series of lectures with an oration which he later published under the title of Ciceronianus. In this speech, he announced his conversion from the superficial Ciceronianism of those who express themselves only in the words and phrases of their master to the more profound Ciceronianism of those who understood the reasoning and expression of his speeches. He advised his audience:

Harvey planned to devote his lectures to a rhetorical and dialectical analysis of Cicero's oration Post reditum in Senatu. The distinctive humanist contribution to rhetorical education was the use of dialectic and rhetoric together to read classical texts. The precepts of rhetoric and dialectic would inform the reader's observation of the practice of Cicero and Virgil; reading Cicero and Virgil would in turn enrich one's understanding of how to use both words and arguments. The classical authors would also provide a rich store of material for use in new compositions.